Throughout history, built environment developed intuitively on empirical experience led by trial and error. Such approach provided resilience and evolvement of patterns that guided spatial organization. Newer interventions in the rural environment resulted in disconnected spatial fragments. By comparing vernacular and contemporary planning and construction practice in the natural park Blidinje, the authors tried to identify the reason for which contemporary interventions resulted in new patterns in spatial planning, ones completely unfamiliar for this geographical area. They identified the reason in the fact that men started to treat the natural space as a commodity, forcing stakeholders to be led primarily by economic principles. Such principles are rigid and linear, instead of contextual in this matter. At the same time, the environmentally sound approach should respect complexity of whole endeavor aiming to achieve diversity and variability. The models developed based on complexity theory and self-organization should preserve continuity and integrity of the place and man. Contemporary Rural Settlements: New Paradigm for Planning and Constructing Rural Settlements Based on Complexity Theory

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is defined as decision making method for buildings from “cradle to grave”. Considering the fact that the construction industry produces 38% of total waste and 40% of total CO2 emissions and uses 50% of all natural resources, according to EIB 2015, the building industry has to change this way of thinking to the concept “cradle to cradle”. According to European Commission (Directive 2008/98/EC 2008), the first and preferred option is waste prevention and the second option are other types of recovery. The waste should be prevented in the design phase and LCA should help a lot in this stage. The main goal of this paper is to show how the LCA can be used as a tool in design phase to help decision process in building design of one of the building systems and make that part circular and, if possible, without waste. External wall, as one of the systems of a building, is taken as case study in its different materialization to show LCA use in the construction waste elimination in building practice. The external wall is the system of a building which is the most exposed to external factors, as weather conditions and human. Very often, the wall is damaged before other systems of a building. Hence the design and building of external walls that produce less waste, is a huge step in construction waste management. The LCA software is used to compare two chosen case studies. The first one is prefabricated wooden wall for low energy houses. The second one is the wooden wall made for Green Design Centre in Mostar in 2018. The first results show that in the second case study, the wall made for reversible and transformable building, and designed according to circular building principles, has better chances to last longer, and produce less waste during its transformations and aging. The paper shows main principles for designing the low waste wooden walls and also some remarks how to upgrade the software to be more helpful in the design phase of the wall systems.

— This paper elaborates on the evolution of architectural form, building materials and structural solutions in the building planning and design process (BPDP), which is heavily conditioned by science and the level of technological advances, as well as by the roles of the key players (designers and engineers) in that process. The goal of conducted analysis is to, based on the values of traditional and conventional approach to building planning and design, come up with such system of designed/built environment, which will not jeopardize the complex system of a given/natural environment. By comparing the traditional (comprehensive, masterful work) and conventional (fragmented, specialized) approach to BPDP, it could be concluded that what is good in the old one is its holistic, integrated nature; while the new opportunities provided by a joined development of science and technology are benefits of the current moment, i.e. conventional BPDP. built space, as a dynamic system, reveals multileveled functional and structural complexity. New spatial concepts in architecture should integrate multivariate shapes, sizes, and dimensions, in organic holistic way. Abstract geometric models of such concepts that could be applied on material structural level should be based on synthetic and complex approach, unifying built forms with complexity of the natural environment. Built forms could become integrated with higher levels of environmental complexity, maintaining diversity and continuous transformation in space and time, in organic, holistic approach. (Bijedić., 2013)